This was a US 996 Turbo with very low mileage, to be honest I forget but I'm pretty sure it was around 30000km. Paint wasn't that bad but some of the swirls were a little deeper so a 2 stage polish was needed to correct the paint. As usual with most cars we do nowadays it was protected afterwards with Opti Coat Pro.

Hope you like the pics!

Arrival pic

Masking off the rubber trim on the moonroof and had trim it with the plastic razor to get proper coverage

Measuring the paint

Before

After

Opti Coat Pro(sorry for the blurry pic)

And the finished pics

After spending the day with this one I have to say I still like the 996 Turbo and think it's great value for the money! Now I am window shopping for a 996 Turbo S or 996 GT2 hahahaha.

I love this e46 M3! Laguna Seca Blue on Laguna Seca Blue seats and navi! What more could you ask for.

The shine on this M3 was still great but the swirls in the sun was annoying the client and he wanted to get as much of the swirls out as possible. We ended up doing a 2 stage polish which brought the paint condition to about a 9 out of 10 minus the deeper scratches.

We had tried to schedule an appointment prior to this one but due to rainy weather we had to reschedule and he mentioned that maybe he was considering postponing the detail until the springtime, which is understandable. Luckily ... he had a change of heart and we were able to schedule a date where the weather worked in our favour!

So in to the shop it came!

As usual, the arrival pic

After cleaning the wheels, 2 Bucket Method wash, and clay bar, we masked the rubber trim

Next up was to take measurements of the paint with our special paint depth gauge which measures via ultrasound due to a few panels not being made of steel or aluminium. This gauge is not cheap at all and costed us $3000

These are the results of the 1st stage of polishing

Before

After(did I mention that solid black is a pain in the a**?!)

Headlights & Taillights were polished as well

Before

After

2nd stage of polishing was completed and then an alcohol wipe down to remove the polishing oils. Finally Opti Coat Primer applied to prepare for the Opti Coat Pro application

Tape removed and little details such as removing polish with a tooth pick from the edge of the stone guard was performed

And finally the star of the show, Opti Coat Pro

A shot in the sun to show no more swirls in the paint

All in all minus some deeper scratches which I suspect may have been from people leaning on the car for pics and the fact that it is solid black, I would say we got the paint condition to about an 8.5/9 out of 10.

We had spoken to this client a few weeks prior to this detail and he had actually referred a Bentley to us earlier in the spring.

The car was fairly new and well taken care of so the paint was not in bad shape at all. A 1 stage polish was all that was needed to clean up the light swirls which then was protected with Opti Coat Pro afterwards.

I had talked to this client for quite sometime now regarding his other vehicles like an e39 M5(which was sold) and an e30 M3. We had never gotten a chance to book a solid date but stayed in contact over the years. He had recently purchased this new Sprint Blue RS4 and was planning to drive it year round and wanted to protect it with Opti Coat Pro. The car was brought in for a consultation and we finally booked a date!

Arrival

After cleaning the wheels and a car wash we claybarred the paint

Took some paint measurements

And finally we started with the 1st stage of polishing

Before

After

A 50/50 shot

The metallic flake in the Sprint Blue started to really POP again!

We also polished the headlights and taillights

Before

After

After all the polishing Opti Coat Primer was applied

Unmasking

Then cleaning all the little details like removing polish from the edge of the stone guard

Then finally Opti Coat Pro is applied

And here are the afters

Always a pleasure to work on an RS and glad we could bring this Sprint Blue back to life!

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